


Impossible Things Before Breakfast

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Category: DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Mirror Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 00:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1325647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The JLA is at a fight that brings a rift, and out comes Slade Wilson.</p><p>Only he's from a CSA world, the first 'hero' they've ever met from one of those.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impossible Things Before Breakfast

**Author's Note:**

> While my 'SladeVerse' worked off of TimmVerse and Teen Titans Animated Series for its premise, this is strictly comics. I have never understood why all of DC's mirror-verses fail to show us the heroes of their realms as I am fascinated by villains reimagined as heroes. (Don't get me started on Alexander Luthor going evil. Just don't.)
> 
> Published in serial format at my Livejournal originally.

The dynamic between Green Lantern, Black Canary, and Arsenal was one that worked too effectively for even Batman to think of splitting them up. It was as unthinkable as the Trinity itself not working together. Of course, none of the three in question would ever concede that the Trinity was looked to as the leaders of the League; they had started seeking people before the three resurfaced.

The trio had it down pat too. Roy supplied the ranged combat, Hal protected and shielded, while Dinah got up close and personal. They were seasoned professionals, veterans of the undeclared wars raging through society.

All of this would have been perfectly fine, except for the strange energy bomb the new bad guy of the week set off interacted poorly with the Canary Cry Dinah threw out. Only Hal's quick grab with the ring and anchoring kept all of them from spilling into the rift that swallowed the guy they had been taking down.

As suddenly as it appeared, it vanished, but a figure was left where it had been. The man stood with sword drawn, black and grey armor similar to blue and orange, complete to the weaponry they were familiar with. Roy had barely processed it all before Dinah launched herself into battle, a short Cry breaking the ground at the man's feet.

"Kestrel," the snarl ripped from behind the mask as the man moved lightning-fast to meet her, blade flashing with lethal intent, nothing but cold focus in his body. 

Roy drew a bare breath later and took a first shot, swearing as the arrow skidded along the armor rather than penetrated. Dinah was locked in vicious hand to hand, the odd name barely registering in her mind as she remembered the latest reports out of Titans Tower. This sick son of a bitch had tried to kill, had tortured, the kids one too many times. 

"Kestrel?" Hal said to himself more than anyone else. "Arsenal, did I miss a name change sometime in our Bird's career?"

"Not that I know of... damnit, I can't get another shot without hitting Di..." 

//She got better...// flashed through the man's mind as he pushed himself to keep up with her, not holding back in the slightest. The voices caught his attention, but Kestrel had gotten entirely too capable in the last few months, too much so for him to pay attention to anything other than her and their surroundings.

"If I separate them, she's likely to kill me," Hal commented, watching for a safe way to intervene if the fight went against Dinah.

Dinah was completely unaware of the conversation behind her, focusing every trick and nasty blow she had in her repertoire on defeating this man. Between what he had done to the hero community, to Bludhaven, to the Titans…she really did not care if she had to take another broken arm, she was going to put him down.

"What, get tired of tormenting children with damn little field experience?" she growled as they locked up for just a moment, before she shifted, moving around and tagging him in the back of one knee. It cost her, as his back fist caught her in the ribs before she got distance between them.

He followed that hit with a hard kick from the still-healing leg, rage flashing hot through him. "That's rather more _your_ style than mine, Kestrel," he hissed back "...or did you finally tire of seducing children when both my sons were dead?"

"What in hell?!" She lashed out at him, wondering if maybe he truly was insane on top of being psychopathic.

That last comment of the man with the sword raised Hal's hackles fully, and he slammed the green energy around both fighters, ripping them apart and keeping them contained.

"Stand down, Canary!" he ordered.

"...Power Ring..." low hiss at the energy wrapping around him, eye going to find the man without a second's hesitation, "Your teacher would be shamed. Again."

"My teacher betrayed the Corps, Wilson…I don't need to live down to his expectations." Hal glared at the man even as he tried to remember that all was not as it seemed.

"Power Ring?" Roy's head came up and he watched it sink in to Hal's thick skull that the name had been used. "Oh shit…"

"CSA," Dinah managed, staring at the differences in this man and the one that had been her lover before going completely, irredeemably over to the villainous side of things.

"..It would be diff--" he cut off the harsh words at the sound of that hated acronym on Kestrel's lips in such a revolted tone, when typically she purred it so gloatingly, and his head tipped just slightly, watching the two of them and the young man he didn't know. "Interesting tone, Kestrel... have a falling out with your old crowd?"

The blonde in the other green enclosure rolled her eyes and let her entire body say just how stupid she thought he was right then. "Hello!!! CSA don't live here. Stop calling me Kestrel…whoever that is, I'm damn sure I'm insulted now!" Her hostility to him would not calm down, something that made Hal keep the bubble around them both even as he wondered just when Deathstroke had managed to get that firmly on her bad side, so personally.

"Slade Wilson? I presume the name is the same, regardless of what you call yourself in that get-up?" Hal walked closer to the bubble around the man in black and grey. 

He nodded once, watching the man that had been hero and villain and hero move closer with a tensed expression, his own anger at the blonde in the other bubble seething below his skin. "Yes. ...It's been a long time since I saw you wear _that_ , Hal."

Hal flinched. His identity was one that had been able to be kept fairly secret.

"I see all Slades tend to be blind to the damned obvious," Roy spit out, shaking his head and pulling his phone out. "Canary, please stop pacing; you're making my head hurt with that subvocal growl over there," he added, trying to get Nightwing on the phone.

"Sorry, Boy-o. Just…can't help thinking of poor Jericho having to do that, of what the kids went through," she apologized, turning her back so she would not have to see him. //Can't stop thinking of what he was, what he should have been, and what he became.//

His head snapped around, jaw setting hard on the enraged comment he _wanted_ to make at the sound of his boy's name _so_ sweetly concerned and defensive on the lips of the woman that had twisted his son around her fingers and to his death. //Don't you _dare_ sound concerned for my boy...// His eye tracked to the redheaded young man again, watching him, //Finally decided the Archer was too old for you, Kestrel? But who is this one? ...All Slades, the damned obvious... ...no...// 

"Yo Roy? What is it?"

"Nightwing, please tell me you managed to get eyes on wherever Deathstroke went to ground at," Roy said, his eyes on the man in the green bubble. "I know the Trinity is still debating how to handle his capture, but surely _you_ figured out how to track the bastard."

"...Why?" the tone was wary. 

The first name was unfamiliar, but hearing his own name in that kind of a tone, with that reference--not that it would be strange for a young man Kestrel had her hooks into to hate him--did more yet to tell him that this world was completely twisted around from his own, and finally, the name Jordan had called Kestrel registered to him. //Canary. Interesting...// 

"Because me and GL are having to keep Canary from hurting one that might be from a CSA world," Arsenal told him nonchalantly. "Called her Kestrel, called GL by the name Power Ring, and we know that's a CSA member…"

"Arsenal, Lantern, I really can control my temper now," Dinah said, overhearing Roy's conversation. "I do still believe in innocent until proven guilty; I just wouldn't put it past the son of a bitch to be running a new scheme. I mean, he would have had to get new armor after Jericho put the sword through his other one, and our fights with the CSA are well known…especially after Ultraman's last rampage." She shuddered, remembering all the deaths caused before the League had fixed things.

"He's in Singapore as of... now. ...CSA world? Aw, _hell_." 

"You believing in anything other than _playing_ innocent would be a new twist, and keep my son's name off your lips, harlot."

//Joseph... is alive, here?//

Her head jerked right around to him, glaring across the distance, and Hal did not dare take the force field down from his volatile partner. "I don't know where you get off acting high and mighty, son of a bitch, but Jericho deserves every damn bit of praise and support we can give him for trying to kill the diseased, psychopathic, murderer who tried to brainwash and torture his team!"

"'Wing…how fast can you get to us?" Roy asked quietly. "Something tells me things are about to explode again."

"Where are you?" Nightwing asked as he threw himself into motion. 

Slade froze in place, watching her with a deadly rage in his single eye, rocked by the words, agile mind flickering from the rage, //What are you _talking_ about, you psychopathic slut?// back towards what the boy had said, Jordan's behavior... //If this is not my... What has my other _done_?// 

Hal muted whatever words he was about to say behind the field, looking at his old friend. "Canary. Stop _baiting_ this man until we can figure out what's going on, would you?"

Dinah growled softly, but then stopped pacing, calling on every trick she knew to calm herself. She then nodded. "Fine. Let me out of this thing. And I won't talk to him again."

Roy quickly gave Nightwing the coordinates and got off the phone so he could go help Dinah keep that promise. He really did not understand the depth of the hatred Slade was causing her to radiate; he knew they had crossed paths, and most heroes wanted Slade brought in for a multitude of reasons, but Dinah's passion…it seemed like a personal vendetta.

"Good. Behave, Dinah." His lips curved as he dropped that part of the field. "How about you head back to the rift site and look things over, actually?" 

Nightwing was on the move fast, despite that it was broad daylight, heading for the jet he had stashed on the edge of the city and flying as fast as the advanced tech could push it. 

By the time Nightwing arrived, Black Canary was standing in Arsenal's arms, talking very softly as they stayed far from the green bubble holding Slade Wilson. The prisoner had been under Green Lantern's watchful eye, but both men turned to watch the jet come down nearby.

The jet dropped down and settled with the clicking noises of cooling metal and the door dropped, Nightwing completely ignoring the stairs to launch himself to the ground, dropping lightly and covering the broken ground towards them with quick, easy strides. "Arsenal? I double-checked, he's over there for certain... _damn_ FoP treaty..." the growl was the only thing marring his light voice as he called out warmly to his best friend.

"Thanks, man…we had to be certain. Still doesn't guarantee the man in the bubble's a good catch…" Arsenal called back, voice as light, even as he kept one arm around Canary to keep her calm. 

The mentioned man was watching as the hero in blue and black vaulted out of the jet, and it was only Hal who saw their 'guest' drop against the field, his knee on the bad side shaking and giving way as he read those lines, saw that energy. 

"Dick Grayson," Slade whispered, his voice full of disbelief…and hope.

The tone _dragged_ Dick's attention to their 'catch' and he stared in shock, as easily able to read that body language on Slade Wilson as he'd been transparent to the man, and his entire body flicked defensive for one long moment before he could shake it off. He'd spent the entire flight--once he was damn sure where their Deathstroke was--telling himself harshly that whoever this man was, he wasn't guilty of the other's crimes... and there was too much relief and disbelief in that voice for it to be a fake. //What... why do you...?// he moved across the space between the two of them like he was drawn by a magnet, his head cocking to the side with his innate curiosity.

"Nightwing, you want to take custody? I know you're not a Titan anymore, but…" Green Lantern knew the long history, at least remotely.

"Poor Dick," Canary whispered, as the full impact fell on her. It was hurting her enough to admit, just maybe, this man might be a good man; for Dick to see that had to hurt ten times worse.

Slade could not take his eyes from Nightwing, even as he forced himself to steady and stand tall. 

"Yeah. Titans are the last people that need to be dealing with this right now. I've got space." His face and body hardened just a little as he looked back from Hal towards Slade, "Your word on decent behavior?"

"My word…so long as you prove not to be the psychotic boy I knew you as in my world," Slade said, voice terse with too many emotions to release in front of these people.

Dick's posture tightened in all-out shock, but he nodded. "Easy to give that... the name's Nightwing, by the way. GL, y'want to let him go now?"

The bubble faded away. "Be careful, Nightwing." Hal moved off, but not too far. Slade ignored him and nodded briefly at the acrobatic hero.

"Terminator. But I have a feeling you know my name too."

Dick cocked his head again. "Long time since you primarily went by that half of the name, but yeah, I know you. Come on. Might as well get you out of here. Roy, call me by midnight!"

"Gotcha, Short Pants…taking Di home with me!" Any pretense at identities was out the window, given that it was Slade Wilson involved; the man probably knew everyone in any universe.

Slade walked with Dick to his jet, keeping the limp to a minimum from his injured leg. He refused to look back at the blonde who looked so like his arch nemesis, convinced this one was no better, with that young archer hanging on her so intimately.

Dick flicked a high sign backwards and flung himself back up the stairs, turning to extend a hand down. Slade hesitated just a moment, then accepted the help up into the jet. He secured himself in the co-pilot position, watching Dick after he had.

Dick strapped in and got the jet back off the ground before he twisted to look straight at the other man, his entire body radiating the bastard mix of confusion and fear and hope and a million other complicated things. "I... this is something I never get used to. No matter how many evil alternates, future kids, or other dimensional problems we see, it's always just... bizarre."

"Tell me about it, kid." Slade's voice was the same rough, amused tone Dick knew from the years of Slade being a Titan Ally…warm and wrapping around Dick like a possessive arm. "Getting dumped into combat with that…woman, and seeing you alive, so bright…it's taking away my grip on reality."

"Seeing me... alive?" The venom in this man's voice about Canary was something to be investigated later, when that tone and voice said something like _that_...

Slade's single blue eye was full of regret, grief, and resignation. "It's been about a year and a half…"

Dick reached up and flicked the lenses back, bright blue eyes watching Slade's face, //year and a half...// "Crisis? Your world got.... but... no. That's gonna make my head hurt. However it happened, you're here. And from one of the CSA realities if you called GL Power Ring."

Slade growled. "The idea that there is more than one world under the tyranny of Owlman and his bastard partners…"

Dick shrugged a shoulder slightly. "If your world didn't get a mass influx of capes after Ultraman's hide a couple of years ago, there's got to be..."

"We might have appreciated the help," Slade said, his tone dark and unamused. "Two years ago was about when we lost our tenuous grip on keeping them in check. The only thing since that we've managed was that we finally took down Owlman a few months ago."

Dick's eyes widened, "You... you guys lost... oh, _man_..." The thought of a world where the heroes, no matter how strange they were, had failed… hurt. 

"Been on the run, most of this last year, since they won the big fight…since Raptor died, taking the shot that would have killed Owlman finally." Slade's voice was tight with emotion.

Dick's hand came up to his upper chest, hand flattening over the scars he was still wearing from the blast that should have killed him, his eyes widened farther. "Raptor... that's what 'I' was called? Your 'me'?" 

Slade nodded slowly. "Since the day Owlman killed a gifted boy's parents in front of him, and took him to shape as some sadistic experiment in human psychology."

Dick shook his head violently, "That's... not what happened at all... B and I have a... complicated... relationship, sure, but... not like _that_..."

"Why don't you tell me of this world, and I'll tell you of mine?" Slade suggested, still unable to tear his eyes off the man before him. In seeing Dick Grayson, alive and well, a hero even, by all appearances, Slade felt just a tiny surge of hope that there was reason to still fight.

Dick nodded once, and started thinking. "Guess I ought to start at the beginning, huh?" He started to talk, from the League's formation before he was Robin up towards the Titans forming. Slade listened carefully, then told the history of his own world, until they both fell into far more personal tales.

* * *

Dick woke to the feeling of Slade being quite restless in the bed next to him. They had been living together for nearly a month, and the elder man had been patrolling with him for two weeks, with a new costume and carefully concealing his face. When they went out in public, Slade had taken to using a prosthetic, rather than the patch, and he had conceded to dye his hair back to its natural blonde.

Dick knew it was not quite enough for the man. In the space of their rather sudden and intense affair Dick was learning his lover was just as much a man of action, one driven to fix problems, and not to just stand by. Patrolling a city was not the best use of his abilities by a long shot.

He twisted slowly, turning to lay his head against Slade's chest, running his hand over the solid muscle of his chest, trying to settle him. Honestly, he didn't know what to do about this situation. This Slade belonged working at the worldwide level, but the only way to accomplish that was to get him into the League or the JSA... a problem when his DNA still flagged him as one of the world's most wanted men, as far as Dick could tell.

"Hey kid," Slade rumbled, running a hand through dark hair. "Sorry to wake you." The solidly built man made himself settle, drawing Dick further up over him. He could never get enough of this vibrant young man who made the worst things of being in this world minor nuisances.

Dick nuzzled at his throat, shrugging slightly as he pressed close. "Nah, 's okay... wanna talk?"

"No…" Slade sighed very softly. "I think it's time I face things head on, though. Anyway you can whistle up a member of the League tomorrow?"

"Yeah, no problem... Hm. Maybe a problem. Roy's a little lacking in seniority, I don't really want you and BC in the same room... hm. Did you have someone that could channel lightning over there?" The idea of it being any of the Trinity was... probably not smart.

"BC…is maybe the best bet." Slade's eye was grim. "She'd know me, if the parallels are so strong." He could master the irrational hatred; the woman was not Kestrel, had not murdered Grant, had not deceived and twisted Joey. It was not her lover who had killed his daughter just as she began her career.

Dick tilted his head, still wondering just how that worked, especially when he'd never heard so much as a whisper of a relationship between the two of them, but just nodded. "All right. I'll see if she'll drop by. I hear she's really busy, trying to pull the League back together, but I think she'll come."

Slade settled back slowly, nodding. "If she's half as dedicated to doing right as Kestrel was to … " He stroked a hand down Dick's back. "We'll see." He seemed content to go back to sleep then, now that a course of action had been decided on.

Dick curled in against him, nodding once. "She's always been dedicated," he said softly, nuzzling, trying to coax his own body back into sleep.

* * *

Black Canary came to them, getting dropped off in New York by her best friend with a warning she would likely stay over at the JSA. She gave Hal a kiss on the cheek, and walked into the outdoor area of the café to where Dick and Slade were both waiting on her. The Green Lantern gave one more look, and then lifted off for the West Coast.

Slade watched the woman walk forward, noting the absolute confidence and the…defensive quality to her body language. She would look at him as she crossed then focus on Dick instead.

"How've you been, Dick?" she asked, greeting him with a kiss on the cheek and brief hug. "You've got two 'hellos' your way as well as a 'come home soon'."

Dick blinked, shaking his head, then nodded. "I say hi back, and I'll call him later and argue about that last one. Not going to make you play messenger for that. I've been good. You?"

"Busy. We met up with the Trinity, and decided to form one League, and then the idiots decided to stick me in the hot seat." She did blush softly as she told Dick that. "Roy…god, Dick, he's just…perfect for the League." The intense pride in her voice made Slade study her more closely; had he misread the relationship there? "Anyway, you asked me here on Slade's behalf." The blonde kept her voice steady, her glance at him professional as she held her hand out to him. He declined to shake, and she pulled it back. "I am sorry about the terms of our meeting last month. I let…perceptions jump to half-thought conclusions." She had mastered her body, Slade realized. The intensity he remembered from the fight was covered, hiding the personal nature he had felt then.

"Knew he would be," Dick said with a smile, then nodded as he settled down to watch the two of them. Dinah was hiding any of the clues he could normally have used to read her, and Slade was locked up nearly as tight.

"It was a logical assumption, one I shared," he said. He was firmly ignoring the pull of her beauty; that was always her first weapon, in his world. "I asked Dick to arrange this meeting to offer my services."

Dinah's eyes widened just a moment before she shook her head. "That is not a call I can make on my own. Granted, I have faith your skills would be of intense value to the League, but there comes the trouble of…well, your moral standing." She held her hand up when he started to speak again. "Here, until the last two years or so, Slade Wilson was considered a deadly man, one wanted for questioning, at the very least, in at least a dozen murders around the world. His reputation was one of danger…but also a deep honor code. Until the last two years." There were storms in her eyes now, but she pressed on. "Until two years ago, I would have trusted him to have my back if the contract wasn't on me, and to be allowed to fight fair and square if it was. I'm told, most Titans felt the same way, until about three years ago when he seemed to feel a need to collect on a very old contract he never finished."

Dick shook his head, still disagreeing with the thought that the man he'd once known had simply decided to pick up Grant's old contract--that wouldn't explain any of the rest of the things he'd done, but he kept quiet on that. His judgment with regard to either Wilson was, well. biased. In the extreme. //She would have trusted him? I thought Gar and I were the only ones that would have said that...//

"I suspected things between you and he might have been…complex." He inclined his head to her nod. "Your fears are for how strong the parallels run. Have I strayed over the line into their territory, if he was capable of doing the same into the good?" 

"That was my thought, and if I had it…at least Batman will think the same. Possibly Superman, as he once tried to get Deathstroke to our side." She sat with her back straight trying very hard to maintain a professional demeanor.

"I was a soldier, Miss Lance. A good one, who followed lawful orders." His visage dipped toward angry just a moment. "And I lost more to my country than some others for it. But I had my code, my honor, and my perceptions of what was right. Yes…I have killed. Even since the Army. But never without due cause, and due proceedings before or after."

"We have a no-kill policy, toward true sentient life," she warned.

"Be grateful you have that luxury," was the cool response. The words triggered a flash of…torment…in her eyes. 

"I am." The tone implied that this woman had faced the necessity of death, at least at a level where she could admit to the need for it from time to time, much as she might not like it. "If you choose to join us, and I can convince them this is a good idea, you'd be constrained to our rules of behavior."

Dick kept watching them both, seeing the same thing Slade was in Dinah, and made uneasy by it. He glanced at Slade, seeing how the man was reacting to that. The misplaced hero was watching her with intent study, at least to Dick's perceptions of Slade.

"I can follow this code of behavior." The now blond man leaned back in his chair. "I'll be waiting to hear one way or the other, concerning this request."

Dinah stood up from her chair, holding her hand out again. This time he did shake her hand, and was not surprised to catch the tiniest tremor in her touch. 

"I'll be in touch by week's end, Wilson." She tipped her chin up and turned to leave, giving Dick a faint smile that did not reach her eyes. "I'll pass on the messages to Supes and Roy."

"Thanks, BC. See you around." She nodded and waved back over her shoulder heading off in the direction of the JSA headquarters, her stride more determined than ever.

"An interesting carnival reflection," Slade mused, stroking at the bare chin that was another concession to discretion.

Dick nodded, knowing from many a night spent talking just how tangled through his life Kestrel had been... and he really, really wanted to know just how Canary and the man that had once been his friend had gotten similarly tangled.

* * *

Some things, Dinah took straight to the League. Others, she knew she needed to spot check the ideas with one or more of the members before broaching it in full council. This was one such and she went straight to Batman from visiting briefly with her JSA uncles and aunts.

"Bruce." She slid into his personal space, sitting on the console he was working at. There was no one else in this room with them, and he could tell she was serious.

"What is it, Dinah?" he turned towards her, his full attention on her face, on the closed lines of her body.

"That other Slade Wilson…the one from the CSA alternate world? He wants to run with us." She kept her voice as neutral as possible, but he had known her since she was young, had cut his teeth with her on Gotham's mobs.

Bruce's jaw tightened, his shoulders tensing. The CSA was a sore point with him, with all of them, honestly, and being reminded that the lines were so brutally re-defined on those worlds wasn't something he was fond of... but... It would be foolish not to take advantage of such a resource, if said resource could be trusted at all.

"I think we should take him up, but…this was one of those cases I felt I should discuss first, with you. He's going to have the worst time with you and I." Dinah reached out and touched Bruce's wrist lightly. "Not exactly comforting is it, to know in another world just how evil we could have been?"

"No, it's not. Not in the slightest. Less comforting to think of a world where our villains became the heroes... I do wonder why we've never seen any of them in the CSA reality we can reach--and then realize that I don't want those answers." He studied her again. "You think he's trustworthy?"

Dinah took in a deep breath. "I'll stake my reputation on this one, Bruce. Fully." //As much as I can't believe that the other one ever meant a word he said, I need this. I need to see him be a hero.// "I'll bring it up at this afternoon's meeting, if I have your support."

Bruce nodded once. "You have it. If he truly is as much the hero as it seems, he'll be valuable. If he's not... better we know just where he is."

"Agreed," she told him in a too-flat voice. She slid off the console, and sighed. "I'll be in Star again after we go home, if you need to find me for anything." Despite being chairperson, or maybe because of it, she had found herself leaning back on Bruce like she had not since they had both been young and inexperienced.

Bruce would have loved to say something to that, but he was going to hold his peace about her being back in Star City.

* * *

They were on patrol when Dinah found them, or rather, let them find her by waiting patiently on a roof, Hal hovering protectively in the background. It was Friday night, but Slade had not expected to get an answer, having seen the news reports of a huge fight between the League and a faction of the Secret Society of SuperVillains. Dinah stood on her own two feet, one arm in a sling and darkly mottled bruises showing over the high collar of her costume.

"You're expected Monday, eight in the morning, at our Hall in DC." Her voice was barely audible. "Nightwing, you're welcome to accompany him."

"Alright, Canary." He moved towards her, easy and light, looking at the span of bruises on her throat and the arm, //You really need to quit breaking that,// showing in his expression. "We'll be there." //Why me?//

Slade noted the arm, saw how she seemed to pull it back from him without even knowing she was doing it. "We will both be there." The polite invitation had the feel of a request from an officer; the politest way to give an order was to ask.

"Thank you. GL?" She walked over to her partner, and let him scoop her up in a sling chair. Both men heard him ask something, but only truly heard her reply as they left. "No, not tonight. I'd rather see my uncles than him."

Nightwing hadn't missed the posturing, and his lips set thin. "Oh, man, not again... I didn't hear him mentioned in any of the news briefs, but..."

"My doppelganger." Slade read over the brief meeting with Canary. "He's done that to her before…broken her arm. The bruising…likely a lift and hold by the throat. And yet she still came to tell me tonight rather than going to recuperate first. Impressive." He looked at Dick. "Something tells me he's been moved up to a priority for the League."

"I'd say you're right," Nightwing agreed. "Explains why they want me, too."

"We'll find out for certain on Monday." Slade shot a new line, to return to patrol. He refused to dwell on the mix of emotions seeing Canary had caused. On the one hand, he had a grim satisfaction imagining those same injuries on Kestrel. On the other…he hated to think of just how vicious a bastard his alternate was, if he was reading the full situation correctly.


End file.
